Ron DeSantis set to officially enter 2024 presidential race

Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the contest for the Republican presidential nomination on Wednesday, setting up several combative months on the campaign trial with former president Donald Trump.

Desantis, 44, is expected to enter the race in an unusual manner — at an event with billionaire Elon Musk on Twitter. The Florida governor also plans to file paperwork declaring his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission, aides said.

DeSantis would be bucking some history if he wins the Republican nomination for 2024. There's never been a Florida-born president, or a president who has been a Florida governor or senator — Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio both tried but were vanquished by Trump in 2016. (Trump's ardent supporters would argue he was the first president from the state despite spending decades in his New York birthplace, given that Florida has for many years been his primary residence.)

At the time of inauguration of in 2025, DeSantis would be 46 years and four months old, making him the youngest president since John F. Kennedy in 1960 and the third youngest overall. However, for every question about his inexperience on the national or international stage — he was a U.S. congressman for five years with a modest profile — a contrast in a general election with incumbent Joe Biden, whose vigour at 80 has been questioned, could be advantageous.

To be clear, there are other announced candidates in the race, but they all need to figure out how to appeal to mainstream Republicans turned off by Trump while also attracting conservative voters who may be unsure about supporting Trump in 2024, even if they have backed him before. 

"[DeSantis] can't win the nomination with only non-Trump votes," said Sarah Isgur, a veteran of several Republican presidential campaigns. "He has to peel voters away from Trump."

Nationally, Trump has been an overwhelming frontrunner in polls of committed or likely Republican voters. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this month showed Trump backed by 49 per cent of Republicans and DeSantis by 19 per cent.

Former White House aide Karl Rove told Fox News this week that there are still many voters, even Republican leaning, who don't know much about DeSantis beyond news headlines.

"It's a mistake, in my opinion, to spend too much time on polls and not enough time on why is it that president Trump deserves a second term in office because of a forward-looking vision," he said.

More importantly, national polls have limited applicability to a race that will be decided state-by-state.

DeSantis is polling at a respectable rate in first-up Iowa, considering he's yet to announce his bid, where Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst attended one of his recent speeches. It's a state that Trump lost in the 2016 Republican race, to Ted Cruz.

Unlike the Democratic primaries — in which candidates who receive at least 15 per cent of the vote in a state accumulate delegates going forward in the race — the Republican process involves many winner-take-all states where the defeated candidates receive no delegates, as well as other aspects that reward name recognition. Therefore, a strong start is crucial for DeSantis or any Trump challenger.

Polling in the states that follow Iowa — New Hampshire and South Carolina — appears be to be more foreboding for DeSantis, but the first candidate debates are still three months away. Much can happen before early 2024.

"It is a tough road, but he's got a good start," Rove said.